Amazon Reveals How Its ‘Lord of the Rings’ Series Is Different From the Films

Just because it’s called The Lord of the Rings, don’t expect Amazon Prime’s TV series adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novels to be a remake of the Peter Jackson films. Amazon revealed on Twitter today that despite the show’s title, it will take place in a totally different era on Middle-earth than the Jackson movies, the so-called “Second Age”:

The Jackson films are set during the “Third Age” of Middle-earth; that’s the stuff with Frodo and Gandalf and the One Ring and so on (technically, that’s the end of the Third Age and the start of the Fourth Age). Even in the Second Age, though, jerky ol’ Sauron is around and causing trouble. And the Second Age is when Sauron first forged the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, so the title will remain accurate, even if many of the characters will be different. (If you want to get really hardcore fantasy nerd about it, Wikipedia has a decent amount of background on the Second Age.)

Personally, I’m just glad the show is not a remake, or even a direct prequel featuring younger versions of all the characters from the Lord of the Rings movies. Give me something new — even if it is technically something old, set way before the films. Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings is not expected to arrive on the streaming service for at least two more years, so we can expect a lot more details about the show between then and now.